Soul Searching
by RandyPandy
Summary: Yugi's been quite depressed ever since Atemu/Yami returned to the Afterlife in the past. Jonouchi tells him a story about reincarnation a "friend" said to cheer him up. -Post-Ceremonial Duel-


**AN: **I would like to note that this fic is based off of a 4-page doujin I read and saved on deviantART. Sadly, I can't find the original doujin anymore and don't know if the person has changed their name or deleted it (though the name on the pages of the doujin I have is "ScarabDynasty1", I couldn't find the doujin on their dA account).

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh and made no money off of writing this fanfic.

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_**-Soul**** Searching-**_

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Six months.

It had been six months since everything had ended. Half a year, twenty-four weeks, one hundred twenty-two days. Yugi never talked about it; instead, he always had that happy smile on his face, and chatted eagerly with Jonouchi, Honda, and Anzu about the latest dueling tips, or what happened in duels with Kaiba, or such things. However, it was obvious that he was quite sad.

Not only had everything ended, but he had had to put his best friend, protector, and partner to rest by sending him back 5,000 years and to the Afterlife. It had been as if he had lost a part of his soul, and his soul was lonely. Very lonely. Still, Yugi never said a word to anyone, never complained. He'd been in tears for the first several days, even weeks, but eventually it had stopped and everything had gone back to normal.

"Aaah! Come on, guys, we've got to get to that tournament sign-up that Otogi's hosting!" the blond-haired Jonouchi yelled, bouncing impatiently at his friends. Otogi Ryuuji, their friend, was holding a tournament for Dungeon Dice Monsters. The game was incredibly fun, and different from Duel Monsters; it was popular, but in an effort to increase sales, Otogi had hosted a tournament.

Naturally, that meant that Yugi and Jonouchi wanted to sign-up.

"Well, you're late for class all the time, anyways, so what's one tournament?" Honda joked, grinning when Jonouchi glared daggers at him.

"Shut up, Honda."

Yugi laughed a little as Anzu rolled her eyes at the two boys. "Why I go with you guys sometimes, I have no idea."

"That's because we're naturally endearing," Honda smirked, smoothing his hair out.

"Yugi? Yeah," she said, causing the shorter boy to flush. "You two? Nah."

"Aw, Anzu, come on! You're practically like one of us!" Honda protested. "Just a bit... girly."

"Come on, guys," Yugi chuckled, grabbing Honda and Anzu's wrists before Anzu could kill Honda. "We should keep going. Dueling Otogi in Dungeon Dice Monsters, eh? It's been awhile..."

At the trailing off in Yugi's voice, Jonouchi knew what the other was thinking. It meant that Yugi was thinking about _him_, and falling into another pit of sadness. Well, that definitely wouldn't happen, not today. The teenager glanced over at Yugi, Honda, and Anzu, and mentally nodded.

"Hey," he said, breaking the other three out of their thoughts. "You guys wanna hear a story?"

Honda groaned. "Not the bathroom incident, Jonouchi... There's a lady present." He gestured to Anzu.

"Oh, so now I'm a lady...?" Anzu shook her head, amused.

"Shut up, Honda," the blond teen said. "This isn't about that, anyways." No one wanted to bring up that incident again. It was just too embarrassing, and Anzu would probably kill the two of them if she ever found out about that.

"Anyways, I met this guy the other day," Jonouchi began. "He kept talking about some things, like how you only get one life, but that life gets a chance to come back. Reincarnation, I think."

"Wow, you can pronounce all that? I'm impressed," Honda couldn't help but quip.

"You're seriously pushing it today, y'know?" Jonouchi rolled his eyes at Honda. "Anyways, this guy told me that it all links together in the end, you know? Everything you do in one life influences the next one. All the fights, all your friends, all your desires... But the thing about reincarnating is, it only works if you have a soul, right? A soul that can keep going after you stop living."

"The Egyptians believed in reincarnation, and so did the Indians," Yugi pointed out. "They believed that anything you did in your previous life determined what happened in your next one, but that you forgot everything."

"Yeah, that's right," Jonouchi said, nodding. Even Anzu and Honda were listening to him with interest, and it made Jonouchi smile. "He remembered, though. He kept telling me everything that he could remember, the lives that he'd lived. And seriously, some of those stories... they were amazing. And he remembered every single one of them!"

"That's not possible, Jonouchi," Anzu said quietly. "How could someone remember all of their lives, if you forgot when you were born?"

"Yeah, how'd you know this guy wasn't pulling your leg?" Honda asked.

"I'm sure. If it was anyone else, I'd have scoffed," Jonouchi admitted. "But this guy... I'm sure he was telling the truth. I could feel it in my heart."

"That's romantic," Honda said, in a bit of a joking tone.

Instead of threatening Honda, Jonouchi just rolled his eyes again and continued. "Hey Yugi, you know what a 'Ka' is, right?"

Yugi nodded. "Grandpa told me," he said. Someone else had as well, but it was too painful to bring him up.

"What's a Ka?" asked Anzu.

"The Ka is a human soul. Or part of it, at least. That's the bit that keeps going after the body's gone, and if you separate a body, from the soul... Yeah, you all know what happens then." They were almost at the tournament site, but Jonouchi slowed his pace. He needed a little bit of time to cover these last couple of blocks.

"Soul moves on and all that. The body's not needed anymore, and then that weird reincarnation thing starts over and over. New body, same soul. Only sometimes, things get a little... a little screwed up."

Yugi, Honda, and Anzu were all years. For some reason, the multicolored-haired teen felt his heart pounding as he listened to this. All of this was sounding so... he couldn't describe it.

"And that's when things like you and _him _happen, Yugi," Jonouchi said softly. Yugi jerked and stared at his friend sharply. "Because it's just one soul that's been split into two people, a Ba and a Ka. The Ba keeps on reincarnating, but it's vulnerable and just not strong enough without the mental and physical protection of it's Ka to stay alive, so it dies real quickly."

"Jonouchi..." Yugi said, but trailed off, not sure what to say. Why was his friend telling him all of this...? It still hurt...

"Yugi..." Anzu placed her hand on Yugi's shoulder, dropping her gaze. How the other had to be feeling, she had no idea.

"Over and over and over," the American teen continued, smiling gently at Yugi. "And there's nothing it can do about it, so it just keeps going for as long as it can... one year, a hundred years, a thousand, three thousand. Always lookin' for that thing that's missing, and always knowing it's not whole."

Yugi sniffled a bit and wiped his eyes to dry the tears that had come up. Jonouchi placed his arm around Yugi in a one-armed hug before continuing.

"This guy I met," the blond continued. "He told me to tell you something important, Yugi."

"Me?" Yugi blinked.

"Yeah, you. Something about you. Who you are, because that's always been someone special, you know?"

"Jonouchi... I'm not..."

"You needed _him_ to show you that, but... not to make you _you _in the first place. That's not how it works. It's because you are Yugi Muto, and you always were."

They'd reached within viewing distance of the tournament grounds then, but Yugi wasn't thinking about the tournament. He had spotted something, and had mentally frozen up. It was only Jonouchi's arm around him that kept him moving.

"And so did he. For three thousand years. And you know what else? He still remembers you. He's still out there, looking for you."

"Yugi?" Honda asked, noticing that the boy no longer seemed to be paying attention to the three of them, but at something else in the mass of people. Honda looked out of curiosity, and gasped, his eyes widening.

"I believe my version of that story was _far _less abbreviated, Jonouchi," a familiar, warm voice chuckled.

"Oh my god..." Anzu whispered as it hit her, putting her hand over her mouth as tears came to her eyes.

Jonouchi just laughed. "You think? Huh. That's critics for ya... right Yugi?" He patted the smaller teen on the shoulder in a friendly manner.

Yugi said nothing. He was too busy staring in shock, trying not to cry.

The person in question walked up to the four of them, a smile on his face. He was lightly tanned, with both Egyptian and Japanese blood in him judging from his features, and wore a dark grey jacket, with a grey shirt under his face and jeans with a silver choker around his neck. His wild hair, black and red (with the blond spikes now red), was tied down in a ponytail with a familiar pair of warm crimson eyes. He already had a name tag on his shirt from signing up in Otogi's tournament, but Yugi didn't need to look at it to know who it was. Sure, this person's name was "Heba Sennen" in this life, but not in the one Yugi had known him in.

"The story is actually a great deal longer, but there will be plenty of time to talk of it later... partner."

That was the final straw. The tears fell from Yugi's eyes as he ran towards him.

"O-O-O... Other me!" Yugi threw his arms around the other teenager tightly, crying the entire time. The young man once known as Pharaoh Atemu and Yami held Yugi as the other sobbed, burying his face in the smaller teenager's hair.

Jonouchi just smiled, putting his hands in his pockets and Yugi and Yami clung to each other. They could sign up for the tournament in a bit, but not right now. "Yeah, he's right on that one man... there's gonna be plenty of time."

Enough to talk about how Timaeus fell into the equation by being an incarnation of them before they were split into two.

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_**-Soul Searching End-**_

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**AN:** Yes, this "reincarnation" of Yami has got no blond in his hair, personally because Egypt didn't have blonds unless foreigner blood was mixed in (yes, I had Japanese blood mixed in him because I felt it would be appropriate for him, being originally Egyptian but living in the body of a Japanese boy). Besides, it, his skin, and him keeping his hair in a ponytail helped him not get identified as Yugi or the Nameless Pharaoh when all of the events of the series were happening - it was too early to reveal himself and he would've caused a temporal paradox (anyone that's read my Mega Man works knows that I love playing with temporal paradoxes, but...). Yes, I named him Heba in this life. Seemed appropriate, and nothing else I could find worked.

**AN 2:** That last bit about Timaeus was my idea, and something that I came up with for this fic. It felt a bit hastily added, but I couldn't figure out another way to add it in without it seeming like I'm just explaining theories, but think about it. Timaeus looked just like Yugi and Yami when human. Though we couldn't see his hair, I can imagine it being completely blond, like Yugi's bangs. Eyes? I don't quite remember what color his eyes were (purple, red, or something else altogether) but I like to give him the teal eyes that Yami had one the cover of the Yu-Gi-Oh! R manga.

**AN 3:** I shouldn't have to say this, but... no Puzzleshipping is intended, just two half-souls instinctively wanting to be with each other. If you want to interpret this as Puzzleshipping, though, go right ahead. Just know that wasn't my intention.


End file.
